


Do Good and Good Shall be Done Unto You

by Nocturnalist (CaptainJack)



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJack/pseuds/Nocturnalist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magneto is holding up a bridge and a young reporter wants to know why. Eventual Cherik. Also explores the father/son relationship between Erik and Pietro. Much hurt and then fluff. MUCH fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Good and Good Shall be Done Unto You

Erik was sipping his coffee in a little mom & pop’s shop in downtown New York City when he heard Charles’ voice in his head.

_“Erik! The Brooklyn Bridge is in imminent danger of falling! Please, Erik, you’re the only one who can catch it! And if you do it might repair your reputation. If you get arrested I’ll go to bat for you,”_ Charles cried telepathically.

_“Fine, I’m going to catch the bridge,”_ Erik replied as he slid into the driver’s seat of his truck.

_“Thank you Erik,”_ Charles said his relief clear. Erik just hummed in reply. He sped through New York and stopped at the end of the bridge. He could feel how close it was to falling. He got out of his truck and dove off the side of the bridge so he could support it from below. That was where the reporter found him fifteen minutes later. She was quite resourceful in that she had a large boat anchored in the river below him so she could talk to him.

“You’re Magneto right?” she asked.

“Obviously,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“And you’re holding up the bridge?” she asked.

“Yes,” he ground out.

“Why? I mean it’s very noble saving all the people still on the bridge, but your hate for humans is well documented,” she said.

“Because Professor X still thinks you’re worth saving and apparently my actions look just as bad to you as yours look to me. So here I am holding up a bridge,” Erik said.

“And how long can you hold it up?” the reporter asked.

“Theoretically? Indefinitely. Unfortunately in practice it’s probably more like an hour. And that’s only if no one does something stupid like land a carbon fiber jet on the bridge,” Erik said.

“Am I distracting you?” she asked.

“Yes, but that’s a good thing. I was getting bored and now if I allow myself to think about it I will dwell on how much strain I’m under,” he replied.

“Alright then, I’ll come up with some more questions for you,” she said. Erik nodded.

“What actions perpetrated by the human race in general were you referring to earlier?” she asked.

“Can you reach the cuff of my left sleeve?” Erik asked. The reporter reached up and pulled the sleeve down.

“Oh my god! George hand me the camera!” she said. Her camera man handed her the camera and she took some video of the numbers branded into the mutant’s skin.

“You were in a Nazi death camp?!?” she asked Erik.

“Worse, I was a young mutant who couldn’t control my power in a Auschwitz,” he replied, “They shot my mother to force me to use my power.”

“No wonder you have so little faith in humanity,” she said horrified.

“And then there’s Cuba. We had just saved the world from nuclear war and you fired missiles at us regardless of the fact that there was also a human on the beach with us,” Erik said, “Honestly I expected it. You only confirmed my belief that human kind is corrupt to the point where evolution had to take a hand. Next we have President Kennedy. You accuse me of killing him because the bullet curved. Yes, the bullet curved and yes, I curved it, but I was trying to save him. The whole Kennedy family were mutants. Now we have my threatening President Nixon. We, the mutants had some forewarning of the upcoming events. A mutant was sent back in time to prevent Mystique from assassinating Trask. I took a different approach from my brethren. It turns out that the combination of the two techniques was exactly what we needed for people to start to trust us. After that I moved to Poland, got a job in a metal refinery, got married, and had a child. I was finally happy for only the third time in my life. And then a smelting pot full of molten metal fell from it’s support and was about to crush one of my co-workers. I saved him. And the rest of my co-workers called the police. The police kidnapped my little girl to draw me out. It worked. I turned myself in and they gave my daughter back to my wife, but my little girl didn’t want me to leave. And her mutation. She could talk to animals, but she couldn’t control it. She frightened the policemen so they shot her. My wife was holding her so when they shot Nina they shot my wife as well. So I killed them. The next day was when Apocalypse found me. He brought me back to Auschwitz so I could tap into my rage. He showed me how to control all the metal in the earth. I used that power to destroy that little piece of hell. Apocalypse told us that he was going to use me to destroy human civilization and that he would build a mutant world from it’s ashes. You can see how this would seem like an unalloyedly good thing. But then Apocalypse kidnapped Professor X and was going to transfer his consciousness into Charles’ body and that didn’t really sit well with me as Professor X is my best friend and the first person to ever truly understand me, but I did as Apocalypse asked anyway. Then the X-Men showed up. Mystique and Quicksilver came to talk to me, but their words didn’t really sink in until I saw that the X-Men had managed to rescue Charles and Apocalypse was about to destroy them to get to Charles. That did not fall under the things I had thought this crusade would consist of and I realized in that moment that I had betrayed my brethren. That was not acceptable so I attacked Apocalypse with everything I had. In the end it took myself, Cyclops, and Phoenix attacking physically and Professor X and Phoenix attacking psychically to finally take him down. Since then I have been in hiding again. So now you know why the terrifying Magneto hates humans so much. I really don’t know why I’m holding up this bridge except that Charles asked me to.”

“I might be able to explain it to you,” the reporter said quietly. Erik looked at her sharply.

“Please do,” he said.

“Were all Germans Nazis?” she asked.

“Of course not! I’m German,” he said.

“Then have you ever thought that maybe not all humans are trying to make your life hell? You seem to have met an astonishing amount of humans who do want that, but what about your mother? Was she a mutant? And your wife? Was she? And they loved you. They wanted nothing more than your happiness. And the same point can be made in reverse. You’ve done some pretty terrible things and you’ve met some other mutants who’ve done pretty terrible things, but then there’s Professor X and the X-Men. From what you’ve said, all they want is not to be hunted and treated the way you were in Nazi Germany. They just want to live their lives without persecution. Am I right?” the reporter said.

“You certainly are about the mutants… and my mother and wife,” Erik said and then grunted from the strain of holding up the bridge.

“So you’re holding up the bridge for the innocent people that are stuck up there despite the corrupt also on the bridge. And how many on the people on that bridge are your mutant brethren? These are the people you’re saving. This is why you should care,” she said.

“What did you say your name was?” Erik asked.

“Janet Fitzgerald,” she replied.

“Well then Janet Fitzgerald, thank you and I hope your story does well, but you need to get out of here and inform someone who can do something about it that I have maybe fifteen minutes before I pass out and am crushed by the falling bridge,” Erik said. She made a little ‘o’ shape with her mouth and quickly set about doing as he’d asked. Erik was immensely relieved when he felt the pressure of the bridge lifted from his metaphorical shoulders just before he passed out.


End file.
